John Whitaker

John Whitaker was one of 12 members of the Birmingham & District Gymnastics Association that helped Great Britain win the team bronze medal at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. In the individual competition, he finished 21st, and was the second highest scoring Briton after Len Hanson.

Whitaker never won an English individual title, but was third on two occasions. He made his Olympic début at London in 1908, and the following year won the first of three successive Adams Shields with the Birmingham Athletic Institute (BAI) as national team champions. He was in BAI team that lost to the Northampton Polytechnic Institute (NPI) in the 1913 final, but won his fourth Shield as part of the Birmingham & District City team that beat NPI in 1914. It was Birmingham City’s first Shield win, and Whitaker had the distinction of being the competition’s top scorer.